More Important
by pearlcaddy
Summary: Booth's thoughts during "The Woman in the Garden"


All I own is a mental encyclopedia of all things Bones.

* * *

**More Important**

Panic wasn't something Seeley Booth was used to feeling. Sure, his job was stressful, and he often got pissed off, but he had never felt purely panicked before. But of course he would feel that way now. This was Bones he was talking about. His Bones. In mortal danger. The thought of not seeing her again had him close to tears. He had no idea what to do. And that was even stranger than the panic. He always knew what to do. Not in the lab– there he was a little baby trying to swim in a huge ocean–, but when it came to people stuff, he was a dolphin. He was at the top of his game, always knowing the best course of action. But now, when it counted the most, he couldn't think of anything. He just kept seeing various images of Bones in his head: studying a skeleton, laughing, typing on her laptop, struggling to understand some pop culture reference of his...

_Not helping_, said a little voice in his head. _You ever want to see her do those things again, you pull yourself together and you get Ortez to call off the hit._

Forcing the sight of a triumphant Bones from behind his closed eyelids, he hurried towards his SUV, forming a plan as he ran.

* * *

Seeing Ortez out of his side view mirror, his entire body tensed. His job had led him to see some of the worst people in the world, but he hadn't managed to hate any of them as much as he currently hated Ortez. No one threatened his Bones. No one.

Slipping out of his car, Booth followed Ortez down an alley as quietly as he could. Watching the mob leader strut calmly along, Booth's entire body filled with an incredible anger, the kind that made his every limb shake furiously. Before he knew it, he had grabbed the man and thrown him into a doorway.

"What are you crazy? This is my neighborhood." The cocky, superior tone in Ortez's voice just made Booth want to hit him even more. Never one to beat around the bush, he snapped out his next words, not bothering to disguise the anger in them.

"You put a hit out on my partner?" Booth found himself fighting down an internal sob as he said it. Crying in front of a mob leader was not the best way to get him to not kill Bones. _Brennan. _The little voice was back._ Repeat after me– Brennan. You try to personalize this, you'll just end up smashing his skull into the wall._

"She's not F.B.I." The tone in Ortez's voice made it clear that he still thought he was in control, which just pissed Booth off even more. _Alpha male tendencies_, said that little voice in his head that was probably Bones's. _Brennan's_. But depersonalizing it didn't work this time; just realizing how much Bones had managed to change even the little voices in his head caused his fist to smash into Ortez's cheek.

Grabbing the mob leader by the throat, Booth pulled out his gun and pressed it under Ortez's chin.

"I never said anything about FBI. She 's my partner, ese, and if anything happens to her, I will find you and I will kill you. I won' t think twice." Images of Bones in pain flashed before his eyes and, even though he knew it was his own mind coming up with the images, he couldn't stop the anger from building up even more.

One look in Ortez's eyes told him that the mobster was scared. But not scared enough.

"Come here; look at my eyes." Booth's gun hand, shaking with fear for Bones's life, forced the weapon it was holding into Ortez 's mouth, cocking it loudly. And then he just let the anger speak.

"Look at my face." _If you doubt my words, you won't doubt my eyes._ "If anything happens to her, I will kill you. This is between you and me. What nobody sees, nobody knows. You've got nothing to prove. Understand?"

There was no response from the mob leader, most likely because of the gun currently residing in his mouth. But still, panic filled Booth again. _If this doesn't work..._

"You understand?" Internally, he flinched at the tone of his voice. Even he could heard the desperation in it.

"Uuh." Seeing the look in Ortez's face, he could feel his own relax into a (admittedly sarcastic) smile. It might not have been a clear, distinct 'yeah', but allowing for the mobster's current inability to clearly speak, Booth'd take what he could get.

"Yeah, I thought so. Now if you don' t mind, I'll leave first cause I've got somewhere I have to be." Uncocking his gun, he turned and started to walk away. Then an image, more vivid than any of the ones before, flashed in front of him. Bones, lying on the ground with wide, glassy, gaping eyes and bloody bullet holes riddling her body. For a second, it was all too real to Booth. Bones was dead. He had failed her.

He spun around, cocking the gun again and pointing it at Ortez's forehead. The fear in the mob leader's eyes reminded Booth that it had not in fact happened, and after staring the man down for another moment, he jerked the gun down and walked away.

* * *

Despite the fact that the car ride over had given him enough time to assure himself that what he had seen hadn't happened, he still couldn't help running over to the two people standing near two coffins. However the first face he saw was not the one he had been picturing for the last two hours, but that of Angela. Glancing over at Bones's back, which was stiff and facing him, Booth turned to her best friend.

"Am I in trouble?" He couldn't help but think how ironic it would be if Bones start to hate him after he saved her life.

"You're late for a funeral. Of course you're in trouble."

Angela's words just made him more anxious. _Please don't hate me, Bones._

"Sorry."

Then she turned to look at him and he knew she wasn't mad. At least not in the 'hating his guts for the rest of eternity' kind of way. And she was alive. Of course, he'd already known that, but just seeing the disapproving glare in her eyes was enough to make him giddy. _Never thought I'd say that._ "I apologize. I– everything okay here?"

"Where were you?"

The questioning tone, the child-like innocence of that look... all the fear that he'd been running on just seeped away.

"I had something to do." He was not really in the mood for one of her 'alpha male' speeches again, especially considering that his own personal voice has been giving him one for the past half hour.

"More important then a funeral?"

Of course. _I was preventing another one._

"I thought so at the time."

The look on her face was enough to let him know that he had been forgiven. As she turned and started to walk away with Angela, he smiled– his first real smile that day. She was safe. But even so, he couldn't resist running down the hill just a little faster to keep close to her. Because he had finally realized what lengths he would go to prevent what had almost happened to her from happening. He was not going to lose her.


End file.
